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<title>The Mach 4 Project</title>
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<h1>The Mach 4 Project</h1>

<hr>

The goal of the Mach 4 project
is to investigate some new research ideas,
fix the major problems of Mach 3,
and provide the base needed by the Flux project,
ending up with a fast, flexible, functional kernel
worthy of being called Mach version 4.
We will retain compatibility with Mach 3 to as much as is practical.
<a href="http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flexmach/pimtg.1-95.slides.ps.gz">
Slides from an overview talk concentrating on aspects of the Mach 4 kernel</a>
give some details.
<p>

It is important to note that most of our work distributed up to this
point (and on the Intel x86 platform, all of it) contains little of our
research.  On the x86, the distributed changes have been 100% oriented
to increasing Mach's ease of use and practicality in a PC environment.
This emphasis is reflected in these pages.  The research and development
are happening, and will be available eventually.
<hr>


<h2>Release Information</h2>

<h3>Current Release</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href = "http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flux/mach4-i386/html/UK02p21-release.html">Release UK02p21</a> (November 3, 1995)
</ul>

<h3>Old Release Information</h3>

The latest Mach snapshot for the x86 is available by <a
href="ftp://flux.cs.utah.edu:/flux/">anonymous FTP to
flux.cs.utah.edu</a>.
In general, the PA version has not yet been wholly integrated with
these rather x86-specific mach4 notes or the source code--
as currently distributed, they are separate tar files.
This will change!
<p>

See the "changes" sections below, the
ChangeLogs in the source distribution,
and the mailing list archive to find out what's new and
different from CMU's version of Mach, and what is planned for the near
future.  We will be putting some more complete documentation in these
Web pages before long.
<p>

The current snapshot is primarily based on CMU's MK83a, with a totally
new GNU-style build environment and changes by Johannes Helander to
support the Lites server.  The hp700 support is all new vs. MK83.  On
the x86, we have introduced a new microkernel boot mechanism and
incorporated changes from Remy Card to support Linux ext2 filesystems,
and changes from Csizmazia Balazs to support MINIX filesystems.
The kernel also contains some new device drivers provided by
Shantanu Goel and Steve Clawson.
The x86 kernel can be booted from either Linux, NetBSD, or Mach boot
loaders, runs Lites with no problem, but does not incorporate any of
our research work.  However, that will be coming soon.
<p>

<hr>

<h2>Mailing Lists</h2>

Send a message to <a href = "mail-mach4-users-request.html">
<b>mach4-users-request@cs.utah.edu</b></a>
to get on the <b>mach4-users</b> mailing list,
which is for general questions and discussion regarding the Mach 4 project.
You can get a
<a href="ftp://jaguar.cs.utah.edu:/flexmach/mach4-users-archive">
copy of the mailing list archive from jaguar.cs.utah.edu</a>
 (1.3MB in November '95).
<p>

You can also read the <b>mach4-users</b> mailing list archive <b>on-line</b>
either by 
<a href =
"http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flexmach/lists/mach4-users/threads.html">
threads</a> or by 
<a href
="http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flexmach/lists/mach4-users/maillist.html">
subject</a>.
<p>

If you would prefer to see only announcements relating to the project,
send a message to <a href = "mail-mach4-announce-request.html">
<b>mach4-announce-request@schirf.cs.utah.edu</b></a>
to get on the <b>mach4-announce</b> mailing list,
which is a lower-volume list for announcements only.
Note that if you are on the mach4-users mailing list,
you will <b>also</b> see everything posted to the mach4-announce list:
you do <b>not</b> need to be on both lists at once.
<p>


<p>

<b>Warning:</b>
There is probably a lot of slightly (or grossly) out-of-date information in these pages;
it's impossible to keep them up-to-date all the time.
If you find anything obviously inaccurate or out-of-date,
please send us a message,
preferably containing some replacement text that we can simply glue in.
It'll get updated faster that way.
<p>

<h2>More Information</h2>
<ul>
<li>	<b><a href="install.html">Installation</a>:</b>
	How to get Mach configured, compiled, and installed on your system.
	Mach can be compiled using native build tools on Linux, BSD, Mach+UX, and Mach+Lites,
	and can be cross-compiled from any environment
	on which you can build the necessary GNU cross-development tools.
	<p>

<li>	<b><a href="projects.html">Subprojects</a>:</b>
	Some things needing to be done or currently in progress.
	<b>You can help!</b>
	<p>

<li>	<b><a href="changes.html">Changes already made to Mach</a>:</b>
	Things that have already been done.
	Includes some notes on how to bring older ports to other architectures
	up-to-date with the latest Mach4 releases.
	<p>

<li>	<b><a href = "http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flexmach/papers.html#MACH">Mach-related papers</a>:</b>
	PostScript papers available describing
	some of the Mach restructuring work in more detail.
	<p>
<li>	The <b><a href =
"http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flexmach/lists/mach4-users/threads.html">
	mach4-users Mailing List Archive</a></b>
	is available for reading online.  The archive can also be
	viewed sorted by
	<b><a href =
"http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flexmach/lists/mach4-users/maillist.html">
	subject</a></b>.

	
</ul>


<h2>Related Projects</h2>
<ul>

<li>	<b><a href="http://www.cs.hut.fi/~jvh/lites.html">Lites</a>:</b>
	A usable, free Mach single server, based on BSD 4.4 Lite,
	which currently runs on the x86, PA-RISC, and pc532, with preliminary
	ports to the R3000 and Alpha.
	On the x86, Lites supports binary compatibility with Linux, NetBSD,
	and FreeBSD.  Currently, we distribute
	<a href = "/projects/flux/lites/html/">
	the most recent release of Lites</a>.
	<p>

<li>	<b><a href="http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~trent/gnu/hurd/">Hurd</a>:</b>
	The Free Software Foundation's new multiserver,
	now somewhat functional and close to being self-hosting.
	Mail to <addr>hurd-ann-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu</addr> for more information.
	<p>

<li>	<b><a href="http://riwww.osf.org:/os/index.html">
	OSF Mach project</a>:</b>
	The Open Software Foundation is doing lots of work with
	two versions of the Mach kernel (Mach 3 and MK++)
	and the "AD2" operating system servers above Mach.
	<p>

<li>	<b><a href="http://www.cs.cmu.edu:/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/mach/public/www/mach.html">
	Original CMU Mach project</a>:</b>
	This page contains information about the original Mach project at CMU,
	and the Mach 3.0 kernel which is the starting point of the Mach 4 project.
	It still contains useful documentation and other pointers.
	<p>

</ul>

<b><a href = "http://www.cs.utah.edu/projects/flexmach/index.html">UP: Flex/Mach project</a></b>

<hr>
<address><A HREF="mailto:spo@cs.utah.edu">spo@cs.utah.edu</A><br>
Last modified Fri Nov 3 1995</address>
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